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Buddy Rich (of course, once we delve into jazz there are many others such as Max Roach, Gene Krupa, Philly Joe Jones, etc.)

Bill Bruford

Barriemore Barlow (of Jethro Tull)

Alan White or Nick Mason A note about Alan White. When he joined Yes in 1972 he had a very short time to learn their set list up through Close to the Edge. That is amazing. Then he went on to create his own work in their subsequent albums like Tales from Topographic Oceans, Relayer, Going for the One.

This list does not include but should include other amazing drummers like the Motown session players, the Funk Brothers, and Clyde Stubblefield who revolutionized drumming with James Brown.

And what about Alphonse Mouzon who Bonzo listened to? That is what is so difficult about these types of lists.

Guitarists

Too many to list and too subjective to list a top five. Depends on what I am listening to. More difficult that choosing 5 drummers. The only thing for sure is that Page is my favorite guitarist. Whenever I get into someone else like Blackmore, Steve Howe, David Gilmour, Leo Kottke, Martin Barre, Santana, Django, etc etc etc I always realize Page is my favorite when I get back to Zeppelin

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5 guitarists? That's a hard choice because there's a lot of great musicians.

The most impressive guitarist I ever saw was a Stevie Ray Vaughn show that was played on a local broadcaster in another state I lived in at the time. I never saw a virtuoso since who could play a 20 minute improvised solo, never hit one bad note and all the while craft endless melodies like a pro. I was really impressed with this show. Never heard his recordings though. I'll get to that later...

My only comparison to Stevie Ray Vaughn would be Angus Young, whose own lead style sounds similar because they play the same blues based scales. Over the years my favorites change but Angus Young would always be in my top 5. AC/DC rocks.

You got Jimmy Page, which is a no-brainer. I always liked Led Zeppelin since I heard them on the radio in the 1980s. Jimmy Page is versatile, classically trained and classically driven. He's got that Crowley thing going on and really, doesn't record much garbage like a lot of musicians these days. I think they can learn something from him.

There's a lot of classical shredders who started in the 80s and quite frankly I think a lot of them are great but if I had to pick just one of them I would go with Steve Vai who has the best pop-sensibilities and gears music towards a casual audience as opposed to being a for-musicians kind of player. His playing is phenomenal, well crafted and respected by many orchestral musicians.